With
the advancement of technology working on a project for the school or
for one’s workplace has changed a bit. If it comes to teamwork,
nowadays people don’t necessarily have to meet up to discuss the
things they want to. There are numerous tools with which they can
solve this matter more easily.
For
instance, one can use Google Documents. One of the members
creates a document, then invites all the others via email. The reason
why Google Documents is really helpful is that it does not
only save every change, but also it is editable by everyone who is
invited, furthermore each member can see the changes. What is more,
if someone edits the text, or adds a comment to it, the others are
notified by an email. Another advantage of it is that since this
document can be accessed through google accounts, one does not have
to bring along a pen drive if they have WI-FI connection. Although,
it has a drawback too, that is to say, we cannot insert pictures into
our document.
Another
tool which might come in handy is a program called Skype. This
program does not only do a good service if we want stay in touch with
someone, but it is also helpful to have a live discussion with others
without having to agree on a place and time to meet up. This might
not be a huge problem if there are only a few members in the group,
but the bigger the group is, the harder it is to find a place and the
time which is suitable for everyone. With Skype, you only have to
make up your mind about time, not to mention that you have more time
on your hands, since you saved the amount you would have spent on
travelling. In addition, you can have the discussion from the
coziness of your own home.
Yet,
both Skype and Google Documents are impersonal compared
to meeting in a café. These do not replace having a drink in a nice
place, and chatting away on relevant, and also on not so relevant
topics. So, to sum it up, I would say that all of these advancements
of technology are useful, still it would be a shame to forget about
the conventional way of meetings. While working on our project, we,
the Theatre group used all of these methods to work on our project,
and it turned out to be great. We did not only manage to do it in the
most comfortable, and enjoyable way, but we also had a great time
while doing it.
Picture was taken
from:
http://www.avtechpd.com/e-learning-tutorials/
http://www.avtechpd.com/e-learning-tutorials/
I agree that Skype is very useful but I found that it has more drawbacks than what is mentioned. It is generally useful when talking to one person but when more people are involved it becomes more complicated. Skype is very dependent on having a suitable Internet connection without which some people could lose parts of the conversation.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it always seems to me that the conversation is always less inspirational than in person due to the limitations of the medium. In this, the fact that a computer is involved might play a role, as it provides significant distraction and makes it much more difficult to concentrate.
However, I completely agree on its convenience.
I completely agree with you on the usage of Google Documents. I was surprised on this class that not many people knew about it. I really like using it for projects because of all the advantages you mentioned in your post. Although one disadvantage occurred while we used it in our group; it seemed that not all the email addresses are compatible with the program. I don't know whether it was that specific email address or the program's fault. However we managed to deal with it and we have been using it since then.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you have mentioned some of the drawbacks of these platforms, I would add a few more based on my own experience. Firstly, when I was using Google Documents, I noticed that if we work on the doc at the same time the structure of our texts tends to collapse, and I also believe that sometimes it can be disturbing if we use the chat while we are writing or correcting our parts in the text. As for Skype, I believe that it is a very great and useful program, though Internet connection highly influences its effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteI must say that in the case of Skype, I faced more drawbacks than advantages while I was using it. It is very disturbing, that if you don't have a proper Internet connection, the quality of the conversation can easily become very poor. If you want to make a video call, the same problem can occur. The quality of the video could be very poor as well, people can barely recognize each other and I have also experienced that while I was making a video call, I saw the person's mouth moving but the voice came secons later. Because of these, I actually stopped using because i didn't have enough patience to reconnect again and again.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you managed to summarize the facts about Google Docs and Skype, however you could have pay more attenton to their disadvantages. I think Google Docs works quite well and is a perfect way for contacting with members of a group when doing a project work. I also used it many times during my studies. It is not perfect of course but I like each Google based programs so for me these are still very useful. On the other hand, I would never recommend Skype to anyone. Its developers should finally do something in order to improve the quality of the videos because, as others have mentioned it in the previous comments, they have a horrible quality. I tried to use it by mobile internet but with no success because it requires speed, high quality internet access ..though, I had problems with it when accessing WIFI so I think the developers should finally solve these. Instead of Skype, I highly recommend the usage of Viber because it is similar to Skype but I think it is more user-friendly, works much better and is continuously updated, and what is more that you can also download it to your computer.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary. However, I think the best is if you use both methods. Rarely can a project work be done with the complete lack of face-to-face communication. But, obviously, if you rely completely on it, it might become slow, and ineffective. Google Docs is a great invention, and although I don't use it too often, I haven't experienced annoying problems in it. However, as my main email address is not Google-based, it took me a while to connect to our project work, which was a bit inconvenient. I think Google's enormous online empire tends to get intolerant towards users who don't base their online presence entirely on them.
ReplyDeleteAnd all in all, if you are working on something serious, you should meet in person first, and then work individually, having constant contact online, and summarising your work again in person.